Afrikaner Calvinism

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Afrikaner Calvinism" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (September 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Part of a series on
Reformed Christianity
Reformation Wall in Geneva, featuring prominent Reformed theologians William Farel, John Calvin, Theodore Beza, and John Knox
Background Christianity Reformation Protestantism
Theology Theology of John Calvin Covenant theology Republication of the Covenant of Works Baptist Covenant Theology Logical order of God's decrees Baptism Lord's Supper Regulative principle Predestination Scholasticism
Texts List of texts Institutes of the Christian Religion Geneva Bible Confessions Three Forms of Unity Westminster Standards Systematic theology Metrical psalter
Theologians List of theologians Huldrych Zwingli Johannes Oecolampadius Martin Bucer Peter Martyr Vermigli Heinrich Bullinger John Calvin John Knox Zacharias Ursinus Theodore Beza William Perkins Franciscus Gomarus William Twisse Moses Amyraut John Owen Francis Turretin Richard Baxter Jonathan Edwards Friedrich Schleiermacher Charles Hodge Abraham Kuyper Herman Bavinck B. B. Warfield John Machen Geerhardus Vos Karl Barth Reinhold Niebuhr Cornelius Van Til Jürgen Moltmann J. I. Packer Michael Horton
Denominations Continental Reformed Presbyterian South Korea United States Congregational Reformed Baptist Anglican
Movements Afrikaners Huguenots Pilgrims Puritans Neo-Calvinism New Calvinism Marrow Brethren Amyraldians Neonomians New England theology
Organizations World Communion of Reformed Churches World Reformed Fellowship International Conference of Reformed Churches North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council
Christianity • Protestantism  Reformed Christianity portal
v t e

Afrikaner Calvinism (Afrikaans: Calvinisme) is a cultural and religious development among Afrikaners that combined elements of seventeenth-century Calvinist doctrine with a "chosen people" ideology based in the Bible. It had origins in ideas espoused in the Old Testament of the Jews as the chosen people.^[1]

A number of modern studies have argued that Boers gathered for the Great Trek inspired by this concept, and they used it to legitimise their subordination of other South African ethnic groups. It is thought to have contributed the religious basis for modern Afrikaner nationalism.^[2] Dissenting scholars have asserted that Calvinism did not play a significant role in Afrikaner society until after they suffered the trauma of the Second Boer War. Early settlers dwelt in isolated frontier conditions and lived much closer to pseudo-Christian animist beliefs than organised religion.^[3]